SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS - Homer's Story in Ulysses

Ulysses had been warned by Circe of the two monsters Scylla and Charybdis. We have already met with Scylla in the story of Glaucus, and remember that she was once a beautiful maiden and was changed into a snaky monster by Circe. She dwelt in a cave high up on the cliff, from whence she was accustomed to thrust forth her long necks (for she had six heads), and in each of her mouths seize one of the crew of every vessel passing within reach. The other terror, Charybdis, was a gulf, nearly on a level with the water. Thrice each day the water rushed into a frightful chasm, and thrice was disgorged. Any vessel coming near the whirlpool when the tide was rushing in must inevitably be engulfed; not Neptune (Poseidon) himself could save it.
On approaching the haunt of the dread monsters, Ulysses kept strict watch to discover them. The roar of the waters as Charybdis engulfed them, gave warning at a distance, but Scylla could nowhere be discerned. While Ulysses and his men watched with anxious eyes the dreadful whirlpool, they were not equally on their guard from the attack of Scylla, and the monster, darting forth her snaky heads, caught six of his men, and bore them away, shrieking, to her den. It was the saddest sight Ulysses had yet seen; to behold his friends thus sacrificed and hear their cries, unable to afford them any assistance.
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SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS - Greek Mythos

In Greek mythology, a sea monster who lived underneath a dangerous rock at one side of the Strait of Messia, opposite the whirlpool Charybdis. She threatened passing ships and in the Odyssey ate six of Odysseus' companions.

Charybdis was once a nymph-daughter of Poseidon and Gaia who flooded lands for her father's underwater kingdom until Zeus turned her into a monster and have her suck in and out water three times an day. She lived in a cave at one side of the Strait of Messina, opposite the monster Scylla, the two of them forming a dangerous threat to passing ships.

Scylla too was a nymph, daughter of Phorcys. The fisherman-turned-sea-god Glaucus fell madly in love with her, but she fled from him onto the land where he could not follow. Despair filled his heart. He went to the sorceress Circe to ask for a love potion to melt Scylla's heart. As he told his tale of love to Circe, she herself fell in love with him. She wooed him with her sweetest words and looks, but the sea-god would have none of her. Circe was furiously angry, but with Scylla and not with Glaucus. She prepared a vial of very powerful poison and poured it in the pool where Scylla bathed. As soon as the nymph entered the water she was transformed into a frightful monster with twelve feet and six heads, each with three rows of teeth. Below the waist her body was made up of hideous monsters, like dogs, who barked unceasingly. She stood there in utter misery, unable to move, loathing and destroying everything that came into her reach, a peril to all sailors who passed near her. Whenever a ship passed, each of her heads would seize one of the crew.
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SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS - History & Reality

Historically, Charybdis was a celebrated whirlpool in the Sicilian Straits, between Messana and Rhegium, but much nearer to the former. The prominent part which it assumes (together with the rock of Scylla on the opposite coast) in the Homeric narrative of the wanderings of Odysseus (Hom. Od. xii.) Sufficiently proves the alarm which it excited in the minds of the earliest navigators of these seas, and the exaggerated accounts of its dangers which they brought home. But with full allowance for such exaggeration, there can be no doubt that the tales of Charybdis and Scylla were really associated with the dangers that beset the navigation of the Sicilian Straits, and that in this instance the identification of the localities mentioned in the Odyssey may be safely relied on. Nor were these perils by any means imaginary: and in the case of Charybdis especially had more foundation than in regard to Scylla. Captain Smyth says of it:--To the undecked boats of the Greeks it must have been formidable: for even in the present day small craft are sometimes endangered by it, and I have seen several men-of-war, and even a seventy-four gun ship, whirled round on its surface: but by using due caution there is generally very little danger or inconvenience to be apprehended. It appears to be an agitated water, of from 70 to 90 fathoms in depth, circling in quick eddies. It is owing probably to the meeting of the harbour and lateral currents with the opposite point of Pezzo. (Smyth's Sicily, p. 123.)
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